


A Week's Accumulation of Dust

by queerlyobscure (softestpunk)



Category: Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms, Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle
Genre: Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-15
Updated: 2011-12-15
Packaged: 2017-10-27 09:02:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 452
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/294027
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/softestpunk/pseuds/queerlyobscure
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Watson spots something in the mirror that leads to a few revelations about the past, present, and future.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Week's Accumulation of Dust

Watson paused in the hallway on the way out of the house, catching a glimpse of himself in the small mirror that hung over the hall table and staring in shock. His hat hadn't been brushed; perhaps for well over a week, judging by the state of it. He stepped closer to the mirror to get a better look at himself, and begun noticing other things – a spot of butter on his tie, a slightly but noticeably uneven trimming of his moustache, and one eyebrow hair that had gotten away from the others and grown three times as long, seemingly overnight.

He plucked it firmly even as his heart sank at remembering the words Holmes had spoken to him a few days short of a year earlier. If ever he saw him with a week's accumulation of dust on his hat...

Well, the rest of that didn't really bare thinking about. Watson glanced up the stairs to the closed bedroom door, a lump of guilt weighing heavily in his stomach. For the first time, Holmes' initial hostility towards the idea of his getting married made perfect sense. He bore Mary no ill-will; that much he'd proven before now; but had simply, for once in his life, been sparing the feelings of his closest friend by not telling him the exact truth.

Mary had never been the problem. It had always been Watson, and something Holmes had noticed a long time ago was only just falling into place in his own slower mind now. He wasn't a man cut out for marriage at all. Perhaps he'd always been like that, or perhaps years of sharing his bachelorhood with Holmes had changed him, but he was too used to spending time with someone who would give as good as they got – and better – and make no attempt to soften blows, and had made him dependent on the sense of excitement he got from his own irresponsibility, especially when it could be blamed on his housemate.

It was very difficult to blame Mary for a desire to roam the streets of London catching criminals, since she seemed to harbour no such desire herself.

The truth of the matter, which Holmes must have seen from the beginning; he was, after all, the one person who knew Watson better than he did himself; was that as compassionate and warm-hearted as he might have been, as capable of doling out affection as he was, there was simply not enough room in his heart – or perhaps more accurately, his schedule – for two people to take up the whole of it.

And as he was heading to Baker Street with a dusty hat, it appeared he'd already made his choice.


End file.
